


Reprieve

by Signe_chan



Category: Marvel Cinematic Universe
Genre: Clint is a social worker, M/M, Phil is a foster carer, check notes for spoilers and warnings, mundane AU
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-11-16
Updated: 2015-11-16
Packaged: 2018-05-01 23:53:02
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 9
Words: 17,367
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5225948
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Signe_chan/pseuds/Signe_chan
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Skye's Dad isn't, maybe, the best dad in the world. He tries but sometimes the best of intentions aren't enough and sometimes she just needs a break. So it's a good job she has her weekends with Phil, a foster carer who gives them a break, arranged by her social worker Clint. He lets her do the things her actual dad won't: like hang around with her boyfriend, Grant. If only her dad were more like Phil...</p><p>If only her dad didn't know she liked Phil more.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> WARNINGS: 
> 
> This will contain spoilers so feel free to skip but if you need to know then here it is: 
> 
> In the context of the modern AU, a character who canonically is a member of HYDRA is portrayed as a neo-natzi. This is not shown in a positive light. He threatens the life if another character who is coded in this fic as still being a child (late teens). There is also an incident of the same teenage character being shot by a parent (non-fatal, a graze on the arm). Another character (an adult) is also shot by that same person (non-fatal but serious). There are mentions of violent acts committed by a parent in a family setting and alcoholism of a parent (though prior to the shooting incident mentioned above they didn't include physical harm). There is also kidnapping in this fic. 
> 
> If you need any further clarifying context feel free to ask in the comments and I'll get back to you ASAP. I won't be offended if you think I have missed something important, I'm full of cold and brain fog as I type this so I'll just be happy for any help. So don't hesitate to get in touch with me if there's something I've missed warning for that I should have.

“Daisy, can I come in?”

He was slurring already, never a good sign. She was going to shout out an excuse, tell him she was naked or something, but he was already turning the door handle and it wasn’t good to be caught in such an obvious lie.

“Hey, Dad,” she said instead, carrying on shoving things into her weekend bag. She’d corrected him on the entire ‘call me Skye, not Daisy’ thing but he’d already proven he didn’t really care what she wanted.

And now she was being bitter and he was hardly in the door. Great. She really needed a break.

“I was just thinking,” he said, slumping against the doorframe. “Let’s me and you do something this weekend, Daisy. A daddy-daughter date.”

“I’m away this weekend,” she said, not meeting his eye. They weren’t having this argument again. They just weren’t.

“I know, I know,” her dad said, pushing himself to his feet, hands held out in his best appeasing gesture. “I know you want to get away for a few days. I just thought it’d be nice to spend some time together. Like we used to. Remember when we used to go for ice cream floats? Then go see a movie? There’s a new Disney film out.”

“That's when I was, like, eight, dad. I’m sixteen. I don’t want to eat soda floats and see a kids' film with you.” Plus she’s already seen it last weekend with Jemma. But he didn’t need to know that.

“But we’ll have fun. Me and my little girl.”

“Not so little.”

“No,” he said, flexing his hands. “You never used to be this argumentative. Okay, no cinema. We can go bowling. Or… I don’t know, what do you want to do?”

She doubted his claim that she didn’t used to be this argumentative. She clearly remembered screaming rows with both her parents in her childhood. With her mom, particularly. Dad always playing mediator between them. God, to be back there…

“I’m going to Phil’s for the weekend,” she said instead of answering his questions. She picked up a shirt and put it down again. There was a stain on the collar. She’d really got behind on her washing. Maybe she should take a load over to Phil’s. He’d help her with it. It’d be nice.

“I just don’t see why,” her dad grumbled, stepping right up into her space. This close he smelt like stale beer and she wanted to push him back but she wasn’t sure how he’d respond to that. He’d never hit her yet but…

They were a mess.

“I just need some space,” she said. She stepped away to shove the shirt into her washing basket. She wouldn't take it. She was going to ask Phil to take her to the mall, best not to turn up with clothes to wash if she was going to beg a favour. “Come on dad, we’ve talked about this with Clint.”

“I don’t even see why we need him,” he said. “It’s like you think I can’t look after you.”

“It’s not like that.” It was entirely like that. She’d come home to beer bottles and smashed furniture too many times to ever really feel safe in the house and Clint helped with that, some. Not all the way. She’d hoped when she’d finally caved and asked for help that, well, she didn’t know. They’d come in and stop dad being sad about mom dying? Stop him drinking himself into a stupor every time someone mentioned her or something reminded him of her? Make him be an adult? Make him accept that she wasn’t five anymore and never would be again?

Of course, Clint didn’t do any of those things. She was a minor case on a desk clogged with more cases than he could reasonably handle, she knew that. But he was a number in her phone to call if things got too bad and he’d got her this. One weekend a month at Phil’s house.

She grabbed a different shirt from her closet. Clean, smelt fresh, and stylish. She’d wear it this weekend if Phil agreed to take her to the mall…

“What’s that?” her dad asked, grabbing for it. “I haven’t seen that before. It’s very short.”

“It’s meant to be,” Skye said, holding it out of his reach then turning and shoving it into her bag.

“It looked like it’d show your stomach.”

“It’s meant to.”

“I don’t know that you’re old enough for a top like that,” her dad said, slowly, as though he was aware of the minefield he had apparently decided to pick his way through.

Then, before Skye decided if she was going to react with some of the anger that was building up or not, the doorbell rang.

***

Clint stood back when the door was opened. He never knew if it was going to be followed through with a fist or something in his line of work, though Cal had only been violent around him a couple of times and he tended to direct his violence at furniture, not people. Cal’s habit of hitting chairs and not people was one of the reasons Clint’d had to fight to get the kid the tiny bit of intervention he had been able to provide. It was pretty fucked up that they had to wait for her dad to beat her before the resources would become available for them to do something about him.

“Hey,” he said.

“Daisy’s getting her things together,” Cal replied, apparently not one for niceties today. He looked worse every time Clint came here. Thinner and paler and always reeking of beer. Clint suspected there were other substances about in the house too but Skye hadn’t said anything and he wasn’t going to worry her if he didn’t have to.

He’d call the police but if they didn’t find anything it’d only make relationships with the family worse and Cal already basically hated him. Clint had gone to great lengths to find Cal a psychiatrist and get him a prescription but he knew for a fact that Cal had never gone to an appointment or picked up any drugs.

The job sucked enough without people throwing back in your face the small amounts of help you were able to give.

“Hey,” Skye cried from the top of the stairs. He looked around Cal to see her running down, bag in hand. “Sorry to keep you waiting.”

“It’s alright,” he said, stepping back so she could run straight out. Some days she stopped to say goodbye to Cal, but not today. He looked a little like a kicked puppy when he realised she wasn’t going to stop, but it wasn’t like Clint could do anything about that. This would be easier if it wasn’t clear that they did care about each other. The families where it was outright abuse were horrible but easier, in a way. You knew exactly what to do. Cal still loved his daughter, he just had no idea how to love her or how to deal with the young woman she’d become as opposed to the child she had been.

“Bye,” he said, shrugging. Cal grunted and shut the door, probably going back to his drink, but Clint couldn’t do anything about that.

Instead he went round and got in the car. Skye was already waiting for him in the front seat, clutching her bag and grinning. He couldn’t help sharing the sentiment a little. Phil weekends were the best weekends.

***

Phil opened the door to find Skye and Clint stood on his doorstep. He couldn't hold back the smile at seeing them. Skye weekends were probably the best weekends.

He'd never had any conception that being a respite carer would be an easy job and over the years he'd been doing this, most of the kids he'd taken into his home had made him wonder at one point or another if he'd made the right decision by signing up after all, though of course he'd never told them that. Skye had never given him one moment of regret. Not that she wasn't hard work, she was a teenager after all, but he never regretted having her here.

"Phil," she said, stepping forward and pulling him into a tight hug. He folded his arms around her, took a second to rest his cheek on the top of her head.

"Hey, Skye," he said. "It's good to see you."

"Good to see you too," Skye mumbled, squeezing him tightly one last time before stepping back. "So, before I even come in, I've got a favour to ask. Can we go to the mall tomorrow?"

"Are you meeting friends?" Phil asked. He'd kind of expected as much. She normally used her weekends with him to do the things she didn't really get a chance to do at home. Normal things.

"Yes..." she said, flushing a little and looking down.

"And your boyfriend?"

"Well, yeah," she admitted, scuffing her sneakers on his doorstep. "But Jemma and Leo will totally be there too."

"I'm sure we can go to the mall," he said, stepping back to let her past. "Are you coming in now?"

"Yeah," she said, brightest grin in place. "You're the best."

"I try," Phil said, turning to the other person on his doorstep. Personally, he wouldn't be opposed to Clint stepping in for a hug too. It was unlikely to ever happen but it was a nice daydream. "Do you want to stop for dinner?"

"Wouldn't want to intrude," Clint said, shifting from foot to foot like they didn't do this dance every time he dropped Skye here.

"Oh god, Clint," Skye yelled from somewhere inside the house. "Just come in already! You don't need to do this every time!"

"What she said."

"I guess I can't argue with that," Clint said. As he stepped over the threshold there was a second where their bodies brushed. A second that both of them held for just a fraction too long, then Clint was heading for the kitchen and Phil was left to close the door.

There were a million reasons it was a bad idea to start anything with Clint, starting with but not limited to the way their lives intersected around Skye. It didn't mean Phil didn't want to, though.

***

Clint appreciated everything about Phil Coulson. He really did. Everything.

When they were apart he tried to focus on how he appreciated him as a foster carer. He appreciated how flexible Phil was, agreeing to take in awkward cases at short notice and provide varying lengths of care, though Clint was careful not to take advantage of that too often. More than once he'd shown up on Phil's doorstep with a kid he'd just had to take from a home in emergency situations and Phil had just opened the door and welcomed them in. He was adaptable, open minded and caring. Everything Clint looked for in a person to leave kids with.

And sometimes Clint let himself explicitly appreciate the physical things Phil provided. Phil's house was always warm and comfortable. It was a long way from a show home but everything was in good repair and neat and well maintained and it was obviously the kind of home that someone loved. Framed posters on the walls, shelves full of books and DVDs, comfy cushions. A home. He'd have loved to have a foster home like this as a kid. Maybe he wouldn't have run away so damn much.

He also appreciated Phil's cooking. His own kitchen skills went about as far as calling the nearest pizza place so he really loved a man who knew his way around a kitchen. Loved home cooking and food that was healthy as well as delicious. 

And, if he was being very honest with himself, which he tried to avoid at all costs, he just appreciated Phil. He appreciated Phil's smile. He appreciated the way Phil's eyes crinkled when he laughed. He appreciated the way Phil's arms looked when he rolled up the sleeves of his shirt. He appreciated Phil's hands, Phil's laugh. Phil's voice. He appreciated how Phil was just so quietly competent. How he always seemed to know what to say to turn a situation round.

Really, he just appreciated Phil.

***

Skye was warm, full of good food, and her cheeks hurt from smiling. All this was enough to let her relax a little.

She loved her dad, she did, but times like this she wished she could just live here instead. Could just hide herself in Phil's comfortable acceptance and Clint's smiles and just never come out.

It felt a lot like home.


	2. Chapter 2

"So, how are things at home?"

"Phil!"

"I'm just asking," Phil said, keeping his eyes on the road. "Making conversation."

"Things are fine," she said, leaning over her knees as though she could curl up into a little ball and staring out of the window and for a second Phil regretted saying anything. "Well, no. Not fine, I guess. But no worse than usual."

"You sure?"

"Yeah," she grumbled, uncurling a little. "I mean...it's not good and he drinks a lot but he hasn't smashed up the house in a while and I think having a little bit of time apart does both of us good, even if he doesn't see it that way."

"Does he get mad at you for wanting to be here?"

"Not me. Clint, mostly. And you. But he's never even seen you so..."

"As long as he doesn't take whatever he's feeling out on you."

"He doesn't," Skye said, reaching across the car to lay a hand on his arm. "I'm really fine, Phil. I know you worry but I can handle my dad. I've been doing this for a long time."

He knew that. Didn't mean he thought any of this was fair. He got that Cal was in a dark place now. He'd never met the man but he had been fully briefed. That might explain his actions but there was a world of difference between explaining and excusing. Nothing excused how he treat his daughter.

Nothing excused the fact that Skye just accepted that things not being fine was okay.

"I so don't want to talk about this, anyway," Skye said, slumping back in her seat. "God, you'll be asking me about my GPA next."

"Do you need me to ask you about your GPA?"

"No, it's just fine, thank you. Though I’ve maybe got some homework to do tonight, don't let me forget."

"I won't," Phil promised, mentally sliding homework time into his plan for the evening. She normally brought some over and they say down together to work through it. He thought she enjoyed it as much as he did, that quiet space for them to just do something together. He wished they had more time to just be quiet together.

"Anyway, I don't even want to think about that yet. What are you going to do while I'm at the mall?"

"Not sure," Phil said. "Maybe go see a movie?"

"You're not going to go home?" Skye asked, nose wrinkling. "I mean, there's no need to hang around for my sake."

"I've been meaning to see a movie for a while," Phil lied. "Just never really had the time."

"Whatever," Skye said, clearly seeing through him. He didn't mind. Part of his job here was to be there for her if she needed anything and she was notoriously bad at admitting she needed things until the very last minute so he intended to stay close.

Not that he didn't trust Jemma and Leo. He'd met them, they were good kids. It was the boyfriend he didn't trust.

Not that he'd said anything to her. He knew she hadn't told her dad about the entire boyfriend thing because he wouldn't approve and the last thing Phil wanted to do was make her think about her dad when they were having her time away from him. But she was a good kid and he'd found that one of the worst things about fostering was watching kids do things you knew they'd regret but not being able to stop them.

Still, he couldn't stop her. All he could do was be available to hold her hand if it did all go wrong, and hope he _was_ wrong.

"Besides, by the time I drove home I'd basically just have to turn around and come back anyway," Phil said, which was true enough. He certainly didn't intend to leave Skye alone for too long.

"You're so lame," Skye said, but when he glanced over she was smiling. "As long as you don't think you're hanging out with us."

"Wouldn't dream of it. Just call me when you're done and I'll come and get you. Completely discreetly. Jemma and Leo won't even know I'm there."

"You won't know I've phoned you, you'll have your phone off in the cinema."

"I'll keep it in my pocket on vibrate. If you need me, I'll be there."

***

"So, you want to head out of here for a while?" Grant whispered in her ear. Skye looked around quickly, like everyone in the stupid food court would be looking at them and judging them. Like they could see Grant's hand on her thigh under the table.

"I don't know," she said, sliding down into her chair a little.

"Come on, it's not like I get to see you all that often."

"I promised Leo and Jemma we'd hang out with them today."

"And we have," Grant said, sliding his free hand around her shoulder to pull her against him. "We've been with them like two hours. Can't I get some alone time here?"

She guessed it wasn't unreasonable that he'd want some. They'd been dating for nearly six months, after all, and he was older than her so it made sense that he'd have more experience and expect more. Not that she was naive, she'd had boyfriends before but it had all been… innocent? Like, there was the one time a boy had got her bra off and then not been at all sure what to do with what he found underneath.

She suspected Grant would know exactly what to do with what he found underneath. She just wasn't sure she actually wanted him to do it.

"Here you go," Jemma said, interrupting them as she slide into the booth across from them. "We got drinks for everyone."

"Yeah, I hope you like coke because I got to the front of the line and kind of forgot any other drinks exist, sorry," Leo said, sliding in after Jemma. Skye slid forward a bit, pulling herself from under Grant’s arm to reach for a cup.

"Thanks, guys. This is really great of you."

"Yeah, thanks," Grant said, shifting closer again. "But me and Skye were just talking about heading off for a little while."

"Oh, where are you going?" Jemma asked.

"Maybe we can come with you?"

"We just want some time alone," Grant said, tightening his arm around her shoulders. She hated when he did that. Felt like he didn't give her a chance to say no to things. Nothing big but she really didn't want to have a conversation about why she didn't want to go off alone with him in front of Jemma and Leo.

"Oh," Jemma said, her voice shifting to that tone she only used when she was worried and trying not to show it. "Is this right, Skye? You want to go off alone with Grant?"

And there was the judging. She'd known it'd come. The 'have you really thought this through' tone that Jemma tended to use when she thought Skye was being particularly stupid today and normally Skye just rolled with it but not today.

Did she want to go with Grant? She didn't know. Did she want to give Jemma the satisfaction of thinking she'd pushed Skye away from an unsafe choice? Fuck no.

But that left her going with Grant. Grant whose hand was painfully tight now on her thigh.

"I just don't think," Jemma was lecturing. "That you're quite ready for that kind of commitment. Either of you. I mean, Skye, you're an intelligent young woman and Grant. You're..."

He was a high school dropout with a motorbike, a leather jacket and abs to die for. Just what every girl secretly wanted, right? He was certainly pretty enough and it wasn't like Skye believed in hearts and flowers and true love ever after. She believed in here and now and living in the moment, so surely she should seize the moment and go somewhere alone with Grant.

Only there was a fine in between seizing the moment and doing something totally stupid and she wasn’t entirely sure where the line was here.

She knew that if she phoned Phil and asked him he would tell her NOT to go with Grant. Not unless she was sure it was definitely something she wanted, anyway. He was pretty good about letting her do stupid things if she really wanted to do them but did she really want this?

She didn't really know how to answer that.

"I just don't think you should," Jemma said, crossing her arms over her chest. Grant was glaring at Jemma now and there was almost a dangerous edge to it. She knew just what to do when someone became dangerous. Defuse and avoid.

"Hey, no, I want to," she lied.

"Did you not listen to a word I just said?" Jemma huffed.

"Yes but, come on, you're not my mum." She wondered for a second just what her mum would have told her to do right now but it felt like an old pain. Not that she didn't miss her every day but that it was kind of cosmic background pain to the everyday stuff.

"I just think..."

"Well, maybe I don't care about what you think," Skye said, moving to stand up. Grant stood too and he was smirking now so he probably wasn't going to punch anyone at least. She didn't really want to think too much about what he was going to do just yet.

Then her phone rang.

She pulled it out of her pocket quickly, pulse speeding up. Phil. Phil was calling her. She could have cried in relief. She picked up the call quickly.

"Hey Phil."

"Hey. Just wondering if you're almost done. My film just let out."

"We need to go now?" she asked, avoiding Grant's eyes. "I mean, if you need to go..."

"I can wait."

"It can't be avoided then," she said, shrugging. Leo was giving her a weird look so she guessed she wasn't being as convincing as she'd like to be but she honestly didn’t care if it got her out of here. "I'll head to the car now."

"Are you safe?" Phil asked. "You need me to come get you?"

"I'll meet you at the car," she said, firmly. It was sweet that he'd picked up on something being wrong but that last thing she needed was him showing up here now.

"Alright. Phone if you need me."

She ended the call and slid the phone back into her pocket.

"Yeah, sorry guys, that was Phil. I have to go home now."

"Good," Jemma said, though she was still looking disappointed. Good. She could be disappointed for all Skye cared.

"You want me to walk over with you?" Grant asked, stepping in closer again.

"No. It's just… Phil doesn't like to be kept waiting. I don't want to dawdle or anything. That's all. I'll see you soon, alright?"

"Yeah, see you," Leo said. And she took the chance to slip away, heading across the mall. Phil was going to want to know what was wrong, sure, but he'd accept if she didn't want to talk about it. And she really didn't. And she'd got away so everything was fine.

Everything WAS fine.

***

Sometimes, the hardest thing was not pushing. Was letting things go.

He knew something had happened earlier. Something he had apparently given Skye an out for. She'd been uncharacteristically quiet since then and he wanted nothing more than to ask. To tell her that whatever it was, he would fix it. To tell her that it didn't matter.

The thing was, those were pretty big promises for a respite foster care to make and he didn't want to ever promise her something he couldn't follow through on. Also, she was a clever young woman. She'd come to him if she needed him. Until then it was best to try and let her sort things out herself.

That didn't make it any easier not to ask.

So he just kept himself busy. Kept himself focused on his cooking. Let Skye sit there, quietly working on her homework.

He bet it was Grant. He'd never met the kid so maybe he was being unfair but he didn't like him. He was too old for Skye and while he understood why she'd be interested in an older man he'd never understood how a man in his early twenties could want to date a sixteen year old.

Not that Skye wasn't a lovely sixteen year old, and very mature for her age, but that they were so far apart in where they were in their lives and the things they should want.

He wasn't going to say any of that to Skye, she probably already knew. He'd just be here. Like he always was. And if Grant did anything to hurt Skye, he'd break the boy's kneecaps.

"Hey, what's the equation to calculate speed?"

"Distance over time."

"Thanks, dad."

There as a brief pause when they realised what she'd said. Dad. He glanced over to find her blushing, her eyes firmly on her work. He smiled and went back to his cooking, not mentioning it.

Dad. If only.


	3. Chapter 3

There was a knock at the door.

"I'll get it," Skye yelled, pushing up from the sofa and heading to the door. Phil yelled okay from somewhere in the recesses of the upstairs part of the house. He was still getting ready for the day. She'd managed to talk him into eating breakfast in his pyjamas instead of changing before he came down but that was apparently his limit so he'd left her to slob around and watch cartoons on her own.

She pulled the door open then froze.

Clint was on the doorstep.

Clint here meant that Clint had come for her. Meant that it was time to go home and face the music, as it were. To be back with her dad instead of here. She wasn’t ready to go home yet. She just wasn't ready.

"Hey," Clint said, his smile sliding straight down into a frown. "What's wrong?"

"I'm not ready to go home yet,"

"Hey, no," Clint said, apparently catching on quickly. "It's not time yet, you're right. I'm here to talk to Phil, is all. Don't panic."

And she let out a breath because, yes, of course he was. Of course he would be because they were stupid about each other and Clint lived to hang around but they didn't do anything. But Clint had never shown up early before...

"You don't normally do this," she said, stepping aside to let Clint in. "Has something happened?"

"No," Clint said, and he honestly flushed a little. "Phil just suggested I could and, well, I'm your case worker so it's not like it's weird for me to want to talk to your respite carer."

"Yeah, because this is totally a respite care thing and nothing at all to do with the fact you want to fuck Phil."

"Hey, mind your language," Clint said, flushing a little. "And I don't."

"Or you want to gay marry him and adopt a million babies. Whatever."

"I'm not having this conversation with you," Clint said. "Is Phil in the kitchen?"

"No, he's still upstairs putting a suit on or something. You want to come watch cartoons with me while he's getting ready?"

"Sure," Clint said, collapsing in on himself a little. "Just promise me we're going to change the topic?"

"Of course," Skye said. She wouldn't be so cruel as it tease him when he was so obviously embarrassed by it. Not much, anyway. A little teasing was only expected.

Besides, she had plenty of other things to tease him about...

***

Clint's palms were clammy and it was ridiculous. He was ridiculous. It was just that he'd never done this before.

Staying when he dropped Skye off was one thing, turning up early was another. It felt more like he'd gone out of his way. He'd called Nat up last night and asked her about it. At far too great a length, apparently, as in the end she'd just told him to do what he wanted and put the phone down on him. It hadn't been incredibly helpful.

The thing was, though, Phil had invited him. And he was shit at saying no to Phil. Always had been.

So he turned up and he let Skye tease him and how obvious was he being if Skye knew? How obvious was Phil? Why hadn't they just done something about it already?

Well, that much he knew. They hadn't done anything because of their jobs. Because of the massive potential for things going wrong. Because of the cost if it did. That isn't a casual thing they were talking about, not for Clint anyway. Clint wasn't sure he could date Phil, break up with Phil, then cope with still seeing Phil on a professional basis.

In fact, he wasn't sure he'd even survive the first two steps. A guy like Phil wasn't the kind of guy you broke up with casually.

Apparently he was the kind of guy you hung around with even when you knew it was a bad idea, that you were getting in too deep. It wouldn’t hurt though, surely, to indulge a little. It wasn’t much that Clint asked. Just a little closeness…

And then Phil was coming through the door, dressed in a shirt as though he was heading to work. When he saw Clint he smiled that full face smile where his eyes crinkled up and Clint was 100% gone on this guy. No point in denying it. He was lost.

“Hey,” Phil said, coming over to lay a hand on Clint’s shoulder. “You turned up.”

“I wasn’t doing anything,” Clint said, which was a lie as he always took Natasha to brunch on a Sunday but she understood. “Thanks for inviting me.”

“It’s good to see you,” and the hand was gone again. Clint would have been okay if Phil had just kept touching him forever but whatever.

“Oh god, you’re both so useless,” Skye moaned, flopping over on her side. “I’m going to go get dressed. You two… I don’t even know. There’s no point in telling you to sort your shit out, is there?”

“There’s nothing to sort out, Skye,” Phil said, so calmly that Phil would have almost believed him if he hadn’t spotted the way Phil’s fist had tightened.

“Yeah, you tell yourself that,” Skye said, rolling her eyes at them. Then he climbed off the couch and left the room, hair swinging. Teenagers.

“Come on,” Phil said, turning to the door. “Let’s make lunch.” And Clint could do nothing but trail after him like a lost puppy.

***

“So, thanks,” Skye said, standing awkwardly on the doorstep. She was back into the t-shirt and jeans she’d arrived in, the ridiculous top she’d been wearing yesterday hidden back into a corner of her bag. She looked younger again, somehow. More vulnerable. Phil wanted to pull her back into the house and make her dinner and tell her she didn’t have to leave.

The problem was she did have to leave.

“It’s no problem,” he said, reaching out and putting his arm carefully around her shoulders. “It’s a pleasure to have you here.”

“Thanks,” she said, turning to wrap her arms around him, to press her face into his shoulder. “I just… thanks.”

“Any time,” Phil said. Meaning it. He wished she could call him any time. Could come over any time. He understood why it wasn’t allowed, she wasn’t his daughter. He sometimes just wished she was. Wished he lived in another world where she was his and they didn’t need to do this dance.

“Come on,” Clint said, softly, like he’d like to leave here there too. “I’m sorry kid but we’ve left it as late as we can.”

“I know,” Skye said. She squeezed Phil one last time then slipped out from under his arm, running to Clint’s car without looking back. Clint gave him one last look and Phil wished he could pull Clint in for a goodbye hug too. They didn’t have an appointment until the next time he brought Skye, though Phil was sure there’d be not entirely work related phone calls and texts before then.

“Goodbye,” he made himself say, taking a step back. Clint nodded, then he turned and headed away too. Skye didn’t look up as they drove away, but Phil waited in the street anyway, stood on his front step until the car disappeared around the corner.

***

The worst part of going away was coming home.

Clint offered to come in with her but Skye left him at the curb. It was better to not have him inside. If she was lucky she’d get to slip in quietly and her dad wouldn’t even say anything to her and then tomorrow they’d just pretend she’d never been anywhere and it’d carry on like it always did.

They’d both got avoidance down to an art and she didn’t want to mess with a system that was working.

As it turned out, it didn’t really matter. She opened the door to find her dad passed out on the couch, bottles scattered around him. Which was good because at least if he was drunk it meant he probably wasn’t going to wake up and talk to her. He slept deep when he was drunk.

He slept deep most nights these days.

She walked around him carefully anyway, gathering up the bottles and carrying them through to the kitchen. She tipped the dregs of her dad’s beers down the sink and lined the bottles up carefully on the counter. Her mom used to cook here, making her dinner. She’d always have weird Chinese food in her lunchbox so the other kids would tease her. She’d asked for sandwiches once and her mum had told her she shouldn’t let other kids push her around.

She’d give anything for some real Chinese food now.

The kitchen was cluttered with the detritus of her dad’s weekend so she cleaned up what she could, dumping the pizza boxes and takeout containers. Some of them still had food in and she hated to waste it but she had no idea when he’d ordered it. Doubted he’d remember.

Then, when the kitchen was clean, she retreated back to her room. When this had first started she’d tried to move her dad from the couch, now she left him. If he had a bad back in the morning that was his problem.

On the back of her door was a whiteboard. Her own personal countdown. She wiped it down and reset it. Only one month to go until it was her weekend with Phil again.


	4. Chapter 4

“And where have you been, young lady?” her dad asked as she kicked the door shut behind her. Skye rolled her eyes, taking her time to slide her shoes off and put them in the shoe rack. Not that it really mattered since Dad had basically already ruined all the carpets in the house, but habit was habit.

When she looked up he was in the doorway to the kitchen, watching her unhappily.

“I went to get food,” she said, swinging her grocery bag like a talisman. “You know, for eating and stuff. Since there’s literally nothing in the cupboard.”

“Don’t take that tone with me,” her dad said, eyes narrowing. “I’ll have you know I went to get food today too.”

Skye snorted because she’d believe that when she saw it. Last time he’d told her he’d get food he’d got a case of beer and some packets of pretzels. Which was, okay, kind of what he ate, but she still liked some vegetables in her diet.

When she walked towards the kitchen he backed out of the doorway, letting her through. She opened the fridge and, yeah, case of beer. No greenery in sight. she rolled her eyes and started unpacking her bag instead.

“So, I’m making a salad tonight,” she said.

“I told you, I got food. There’s pizza in the freezer.”

She wrinkled her nose. There was a time and a place in her diet for frozen pizza but tonight was not it. It was hot outside, she wasn’t that hungry. All she wanted was a salad.

“Don’t you turn your nose up like that,” her dad said, starting to pace which was quite a feat in the small space. “You think you’re better than me now?”

“I think I don’t want frozen pizza for dinner.”

“Stuck up, that’s what you are these days,” her dad said, clearly not listening. “Every time you go away to that… that daughter stealer for a weekend.”

“Whatever,” Skye grumbled, slamming the fridge door. She should have known it would go this way. There was always the chance in the week after she’d been to Phil’s that he’d kick off about it and it had been a while since he’d had a full blown temper tantrum at her.

“No, I mean it this time,” he said, stopping in the door and turning to face her. “You’re not going back there.”

“You can’t do that.”

“You think I can’t? You think that little shit who comes and gets you once a month can take you off my property without my permission? You’ve got a lot to learn, young lady. You’re my daughter and you do what I tell you to!”

“Please, dad, can we not do this?” Skye said. She backed up to the counter. If he’d just get out of the door she’d get out of here and go walk around somewhere for a while until he calmed down…

“What, we’re not meant to talk about how some middle class asshole I don’t even know turned my daughter against me?”

“You think Phil turned me against you?” It was like someone had poured iced water on her. She knew her dad hated Phil but…”You think he’s the reason I don’t want to be here?”

“We were fine…”

“We were not fine.” She was surprised when it came out as a yell. “Dad, the last thing we were is fine. We are not fine.”

“You listen…”

“No, you listen. We aren’t fine. I can’t do this any more.” As soon as she said it she realised how true it was, and it was like a dam burst and there was no stopping the rest of the words. “I can’t come home every night to you drinking and passing out and yelling at me. We’re not fine. You treat me like I’m a child but expect me to care for you like an adult. I’m not a baby, I don’t need my daddy to take me on daddy daughter dates but I’m not old enough to be looking after you either. These are meant to be the best years of my life, I’m meant to be finding myself and falling in love and picking out my future and instead I’m so busy running around and tidying up, and working part time to feed myself because you drink away all your money, and walking on fucking eggshells so you don’t go into a fucking rage and tear up the entire place, that I don’t have time for any of that.”

“Nobody asked you…”

“Yeah, damn right nobody asked me. Nobody asked me if I wanted to lose my Mom. You think I didn’t hurt too? But all you thought about was yourself. All you ever think about is yourself!”

“You didn’t complain until you started seeing him.”

“And I barely complain now. I get on with it. With taking care of you and everything else I shouldn’t have to do. I just ask for one weekend a month, dad. One weekend to act my fucking age.”

“And I suppose he’s so perfect!”

“In that he doesn’t get drunk and throw things, yeah, he’s got you beat.”

“Than maybe you should just go live with him. Let him be your dad.”

“Maybe I should. He’d be ten times the dad you could ever be.”

There was a bang. A shot, her mind provided. That was a shot. She’d barely even realised he’d started yelling, not even registered the gun in his hand until now, her eyes went to it. He was shaking, his entire body shaking and oh god he wasn’t drunk but he was something.

And then the pain flared. As though her body had only just realised it, when she saw the gun. A sharp ripping pain across her shoulder and she reached up, her hand coming away stained with red and oh god. Oh god.

“Daisy,” her dad said. The gun fell from his hand with a clatter and he took a step forward. Like he was going to touch her. She bolted. Ran past him, through the now clear doorway and sprinted up to her room. Slamming the door behind her.

***

Skye sat on the edge of her bed, staring at herself in the mirror on the closet door. Her shoulder was a mess. Covered in blood and though she’d been holding a shirt to it, she hadn’t got it stopped yet. The good thing was it was a surface wound, the bad thing was it still hurt like fuck and it was still bleeding.

She looked a mess. Her eyes were red and puffy with the crying, her face pale and god she hoped that was shock and not blood loss. She really didn’t want it to be blood loss.

The last thing she wanted was to have to walk back out of that door. To have to face her dad again. She wouldn’t. Couldn’t.

He’d shot her. He’d never hurt her, not even a shove, and now this. Something was wrong. Something was very wrong and she couldn’t do this anymore. She loved him, he was her dad, but sometimes loving someone wasn’t enough.

She needed… she needed help.

As soon as she thought it the answer was obvious. Maybe she’d lost more blood that she thought not to think it before. Her cell phone was in her jeans pocket. She extracted it carefully and dialled Clint’s number. He picked up on the third ring.

“Hey, Skye,” he sounded distracted. “You okay?”

She couldn’t stop the sob that bubbled out of her throat, choking of the words. It was suddenly too much. Too big to say.

“Skye. Hey, Skye, listen. You need me to come?”

“Yeah,” she managed through the sobs. “I need…”

“It’s okay,” Clint said, softly. “I’ll be there in ten minutes, I swear to you. Do we need the police?”

“I don’t know,” she said. Because, yeah, probably. But it was her dad. She didn’t want him arrested. Didn’t want him in jail. She just…

“I’ll phone them,” Clint promised. “They won’t mind. I’ll be there in ten. Just hold on.”

She nodded but he’d already disconnected the phone. Like he’d have heard the nod anyway. She shoved the phone on her pocket then stood up. She felt tired, wrung out, hurting, but not woozy. That was a good sign.

She walked to the closet, grabbed another old t-shirt. She’d been in a first aid class once where they’d taught her how to make a makeshift sling out of one. She did that now. Maybe keeping her arm still would help. Maybe it’d stop the bleeding, which was admittedly getting slower now. She carefully peeled off the blood soaked t-shirt and dropped it on the floor then replaced it with a new one, pressing down into her shoulder.

He’d shot her.

There was a sound outside the door. A step. On the stairs, maybe. It was hard to tell. It had been quiet since she’d run up here but it struck her suddenly that it was only a matter of time before her dad came up here. Her chair was jammed under the door handle but that wouldn’t hold for long.

Clint had said ten minutes. What if he came up here and shot her before then?”

She had to go.

She’d had an escape route from this room since she was a kid. Since her mom was alive and it had been a way of slipping out to play with Jemma (when Jemma still lived across the street) for another hour after bedtime. She tried to use it sparingly, didn’t want her dad to know, but now…

Now he could force his way in any minute. Might decide that if he couldn’t have her, nobody would. You heard about men doing that and she’d never thought her dad would but that person out there wasn’t her dad. Not right now.

She slid the window open awkwardly and swung out so she was straddling the window ledge. It would have been easier with both hands, but she managed to swing herself over onto the flat roof and from there it was a scramble down the side of the garage to the floor and away into the night.

***

“We should wait for the police,” Natasha said, but Clint knew she didn’t mean it. She was already unbuckling her seat belt too and was, actually, out of the car before he was.

Skye had been sobbing. He’d seen her cry before but never like that. Something was so very, very wrong here and he was terrified he’d be too late. They’d known Cal was violent but since he’d never hurt her he hadn’t been able to convince anyone it’d be enough. Too many other kids who actually got beat. Didn’t matter that Cal was the kind of guy who only took once.

They approached the door and Natasha moved to the side of cover him. Like that was still a thing they needed to do. Like she had a gun. Old habits die hard.

He knocked.

It took barely a second for the door to burst open. Cal looked wild. His eyes were swollen like he’d been crying, the house was smashed to all hell (again) and there was blood. Clint spotted it, bloody handprints on the walls but not on Cal.

“Where’s Skye?”

“Daisy,” Cal screamed, gesturing with the gun. “My daughter is called Daisy and I don’t know where she is! She isn’t in her room! She’s gone, snuck out. If you’d never come around.”

“I’m going to need you to calm down,” Nat said, softly, gesturing with her head to Clint. He took off round the building. He knew which room was Skye’s and easily spotted the red handprint on the window frame, some more blood on the wall, but no Skye. She was gone, then. But where.

He had his phone half way out of his pocket when he heard the gunshot.

By the time he made it back round the house Nat was on her back, gasping up at the sky, and Cal was gone. The gun with him. Clint didn’t stop to think about anything else but threw himself on the floor beside her, tearing the shirt from his own back and balling it up over the wound in her gut, Pressing down hard.

“Nat,” he said. “You with me?”

“Yeah,” she said, thought it almost sounded more like a question. “I’ll be fine.”

“I’m going to kill him.”

“Clint…”

“Skye’s gone. Out of her window. So bleeding but not dead. I’ll find her, Nat. You just hang on.”

“This is nothing,” she said, her voice scarily weak. “Nothing compared to Budapest.”

“You know, I think you and I remember Budapest a little differently.”

And there was a faint smile on her lips as the police rolled up and he tried to keep her blood in her damn body.


	5. Chapter 5

Phil could have cried for joy when his phone rang. 99% of the time he enjoyed his job in security but it did tend to come with an overabundance of long meetings where the only thing that was ever decided was the agenda for the next meeting. Any excuse to leave one was, frankly, a blessing.

“Sorry, I need to take this,” he said, holding up his phone to ward off their demands that he stay. “Business.”

It wasn’t business. It was Clint’s number flashing at him. Clint hadn’t ever phoned when he was at work before but all kinds of barriers seemed to be slipping down around them recently. It wasn’t necessarily a bad thing.

“Hey,” he said, taking the call.

“Phil?” Clint sounded worried. There was a tightness in his voice even through the tinny speakers.

“Yes, I’m here.”

“It’s gone wrong,” Clint said, and there was an urgency in his tone that Phil wasn’t used to. You could usually count on Clint to be collected. “So wrong. Jesus, I shouldn’t even be phoning you but…”

“Talk to me,” Phil said, quickening his pace to get back to the office. “Is it Skye?”

“Yeah. She’s gone. Not...I got a phone call from her. She was in tears, Phil. Sobbing like I’ve never heard before so I dropped everything to rush over. She was gone already but her dad was still there with a gun.”

“Are you alright?”

“Yeah, Nat isn’t though. And he fucking got away. I had to tell you. He shouldn’t know where you are, shouldn’t know your name, but he’d always had a habit of somehow getting his hands on information he shouldn’t have.”

“It’s okay,” Phil said. He was honestly the last person he was worried about. “But have you found Skye?”

“I’m at the hospital with Nat. She’s...Phil, it’s bad. They don’t know if she’s going to make it. I can’t go. The police are looking for Skye but…”

“But they don’t know her like I do,” Phil finished. “Did she leave the house under her own power?”

“Yeah. There were bloody handprints on the wall though, Phil, so she was hurt. Hurt but still moving and there’s no trail of blood splatter away from the house so maybe she got it stopped?”

“I’m coming to see you. Which hospital are you in?”

“You don’t need to…”

“I’m helping with this. So tell me where you are and I’ll come to you.”

Clint did, sounding small and defeated, and Phil scribbled the information down on his hand as he walked, changing course to go straight to his car. There was nothing in the office that wouldn’t wait until tomorrow.

“I’m on my way now. Can you work on getting the GPS on Skye’s mobile turned on?”

“Yeah,” Clint said. “I… thanks, Phil.”

“Don’t thank me yet. I’ll be with you as soon as I can.”

***

“Oh god, I’m so glad to see you,” Skye said as soon as Grant opened the door, stepping forward into his apartment. Okay, maybe it was more of a lurch than a step. Her shoulder was still aching like a bitch, though it seemed to have stopped bleeding.

She’d got some really funny looks on the bus over. She guessed it was all the blood she was still covered with. The soaked shirt clutched to her arm. A woman had come up and offered to help her but she knew what the help of strangers meant. A phone call to the police, who would tell her dad before they told anyone else because they were incompetent. And he’d come and maybe this time he’d finish her.

Maybe he had already finished Clint. She’d heard them pull up as she crept away through the bushes of next door’s garden. Thought about going back until she’d heard the gunshot, then she’d kept running.

That’s why she hadn’t gone to Jemma either, though she lived closer. Jemma was lovely but her parents had never quite believed just how bad things got. Skye’s dad was very good at putting on a caring normal father mask when he wanted to. Hell, most of the time it wasn’t a mask. She knew people thought she was overreacting to his being normally concerned with her welfare but she wasn’t. She really wasn’t.

“You’re hurt,” Grant was saying, tugging at her arm. She let him move her. She let him force her arm down and examine the wound there. She didn’t dare look at it just now, kept her eyes closed.

“Okay,” he said, softly. “It’s okay. I’ve seen worse. It’s bad but it’s also a flesh wound. Let me take you to the bathroom and we’ll have this cleaned up in no time.”

“Okay,” he said, hopelessly grateful to have someone else take the lead. “Okay, take care of it.”

“I will,” Grant promised, taking her by the elbow. She’d never been here before but she trusted him to lead her and soon she found herself pushed to sit down on something that could only be a toilet seat.

“This is going to sting,” Grant warned, and she could only nod as he spread what was probably antiseptic on her wound. It hurt but not as much as actually being shot by her own father.

He’d shot her. Really shot her. They’d have to take her away from him now, right? She couldn’t even be in a room with him. He’d hurt her and the one thing he’d promised was that he would NEVER hurt her. But here she was with a wound in her shoulder and blood everywhere.

“Hey,” Grant was saying, holding her hand and stroking it. “Hey, look at me. Tell me what happened.”

“Nothing,” she said, taking her hand back. “My dad. We fought.”

“He did this?”

“Yes.” Now she was faced with it, there was a kind of fear in losing him. It would mean admitting that they’d lost. Admitting that she hadn’t been enough to help him.

“It’s okay,” Grant said, hands back on hers. “Let me get you a bandage.”

She she did. Let him press the actual gauze to her wound. Let him wrap it. Then, finally, she opened her eyes.

In the bright bathroom light he didn’t look so much like a saviour. He was staring at the wound and there was something she didn’t like in the set of his face. Something that promised violence and retribution and she’d had about all the violence she could take, now. She was done.

She should have run to Phil.

“Come on,” Grant said, softly, putting a hand under her elbow. “Stand up. You can lie down on my bed for a while and you’ll feel better.”

“Okay,” she said. She got to her feet and she felt shakier than she should have. Adrenaline crash, maybe? It had been a while since she’d been shot, now.

Still, as shaky as she was, she couldn’t help but notice a few things when Grant led her through into his room.

“You have the confederate flag on your wall.”

“I know,” he said, blushing a little as though she’d seen his dirty underwear. “If I’d have known you were coming over I’d have taken it down.”

“It’s pinned above your bed.”

“It’s… close to my heart,” he said, guiding her slowly towards the bed. “I mean, it’s part of our history, you know…”

“A great big racist part of our history.”

“A lot of people think that,” Grant said, earnestly. “But has the world really gotten better since we freed the slaves?”

“Excuse me?” she said, a cold weight settling in her gut.

“I just think that, well, some people are born rulers and some are meant to be ruled, right? I mean, it doesn’t have to be a race thing but it seems like black people end up living in poverty more often than white…”

“And this has nothing to do with institutional racism and the fact that they have to work harder to be paid as much and, you know, have very little inherited wealth as they don’t have the ancestry there to back them up.”

“But slavery ended ages ago!”

“Not that long ago,” Skye grumbled. She didn’t want to be here. So didn’t want to be here. Should have just run to Phil’s. It was further but at least he wasn’t fucking crazy.

That was when she spotted the gun.

“You have a gun,” she said before her mind could catch up with her mouth and tell her it might not be a good idea to blurt out everything she was noticing at him.”

“Don’t worry,” he said, taking her hands solemnly. “I’d never hurt you with it. It’s just a thing I’ve been working on with my step dad.”

“A thing?”

“A message,” he said, smiling fondly, and oh shit he was going to shoot up a school or something. He was a raging psychopath. She’d have thought you’d be able to spot them a mile away and he was always so nice but didn’t the friends and family of all mass murderers end up on TV saying how NICE they’d been?

Oh god.

“I need to go,” she said, pulling her hands back.

“I’m not going to hurt you.”

“Yeah, no, I’d rather not risk it,” she said. She tried to climb to her feet, still a little unsteady, but he grabbed her hips, pulling her back down and then laying out over her, pressing her quickly back into the mattress.

“Grant,” she said, shoving at him. “I want to go.”

“No,” he said. She fumbled for her pocket. Before she could reach her phone he ran his hands down her arms. Circled her wrists with his hands and squeezed. Too tight. She yelped in surprise and he pulled, yanking her arms above her head which made her shoulder flare in pain again.

“I’ve seen that kind of look, Skye, you think I’m mad. Or dangerous. I’m not.”

“So you’re not going to shoot anyone?”

“Not you,” he said, as though that made it better. “But someone has to do something, Skye. Don’t you see, the world’s crazy. I’ve been training for this for years. To be the one to make the statement. I like you, Skye. I really do. I can’t let you ruin this for me.”

“You’re such a racist. Let me go.”

“You’re just brainwashed by the liberal media,” he said softly, kindly. She bucked, trying to throw him off, but he had her caged in. Slowly he brought her wrists together, switching so he was holding them both in one hand then he pulled himself up and lean over her. She didn’t know what he was doing until she felt the metal on her wrist.

“Oh no, you’re not going this,” she said, jerking her arm as the first cuff clicked into place.

“Skye,” he said, but she had an arm almost free now. She shoved him right in the gut then brought a knee up and slammed it into his crotch. He gasped, curled up enough for her to shove him away. To push herself to her feet. She still felt a little light in the head but she tried to run, had to run.

She made it to his front door before he caught her. Arm around her waist, he lifted her into the air and turned around, carried her back to the bedroom. He didn’t put her on the bed this time but on the floor, pressing her belly down into the carpet and yanking both hands up. She could only struggle and swear as he fed the chain of the handcuffs behind a pipe then trapped her other wrist.

“I’m sorry, baby,” he whispered into her ear, still pressing her down. He shifted and put pressure on the gunshot wound and she couldn’t help but cry out.

Maybe it was all she could do. Maybe someone would hear her.

He got up and she rolled straight away, watching him as he disappeared from the room. He came back a minute later with some electrical tape.

“Oh god,” she said. “You’re fucking insane. What are you even going to do with me?”

“I don’t know,” he said, circling her slowly. She tried to kick him but he just reached out and grabbed her ankle, the grabbed the other. He sat down, back to her, legs between his legs, and tied her ankles.

“You’re insane.”

“I wish you’d stop saying that. I just… I need to talk to my dad. He’ll know what to do with you.”

“You need to let me go, Grant. I swear if you let me go now I won’t say anything.”

“It’s not polite to swear to things you don’t intend to do,” he said, turning. Her ankles were trapped now as well as her wrists and he moved up to straddle her waist. “I’m sorry about that, Skye.”

“You’re going to be in so much trouble,” she said, but then he was clamping her jaw together with his hand and winding the tape around her mouth. She fought him every step and began screaming as he wrapped layer after layer around her head. Apparently it wasn’t keeping her as quiet as he’d hoped because he was frowning but it was enough that the neighbours probably wouldn’t hear her.

“There,” he said, leaning down to kiss her forehead. She tried to head but him but he was quicker. “I’m sorry to leave you here but I really do need to talk to my dad before I do anything else.”

He reached down and took her phone out of her pocket then stood up and left, leaving her helpless and screaming on the bedroom floor.

***

Clint turned his phone over and over in his hands. He knew he wasn’t even meant to have it but so far nobody had told him to turn it off so he was going to carry on waiting. Waiting for, what? He didn’t know. Phil to call? Skye to call? Nat to miraculously be alright?

He wanted to have not got out of bed that morning. To have turned around on Sunday and refused to take Skye home. To have done more, somehow. Done better. They KNEW the guy could be violent but it hadn’t been enough…

What the hell was the point of any of this if he couldn’t ever be enough.

He was an idiot to ever think he’d be able to make a difference.

“Clint.”

He almost fell over he jumped out of his chair so quickly. Phil was standing at the end of the hall and he started walking over when he realised Clint was there. He lifted a hand and it was all too easy for Clint to just carry on walking and walk right into his arms and fucking hug him because not too long ago a man had threatened Clint, had shot his best friend. He was allowed to not be fine for a few seconds.

He’d have pulled back sooner but Phil’s arms came up around him too, pulling him in closer. And for a few seconds they just stood there, pressed close against each other, before finally stepping back.

“I’m sorry,” Clint said, making sure he took his hand off Phil and stepped back to a safe distance. “I… everything’s fucked up.”

“It’s okay,” Phil said, best calming voice. The voice that made Clint want to curl up and let Phil take care of everything. He couldn’t do that just now though.

“I’ve got no word on Skye or her dad. I got the GPS turned on on her phone but I can’t leave here, Phil. Not with Nat like she is.”

“Of course you can’t,” Phil assured him. “Tell me where the phone is. I’ll go.”

“I shouldn’t let you,” Clint said, though he was already scribbling the details on the back of Phil’s hand with a pen Phil had passed to him.

“I’ll be okay,” Phil promised, grabbing Clint’s hand briefly as he tried to withdraw. “I’m ex-military. I’ll go in careful.”

“Me and Nat are ex-military too and she’s still lying in there with a bullet in her gut.”

“So I’ll be extra careful. I’ll phone you when I know anything.”

“Okay,” Clint said, and then Phil was leaving again, leaving Clint with nothing to do but spin his phone.


	6. Chapter 6

The phone, when Phil found it, was in a trash can. It he hadn’t been worried before, he was worried now. Skye was only a fraction short of being surgically attached to her phone. He had it on good authority that she slept with it beside her pillow. There was no way she’d dump it.

Not unless she had figured out they could track her by it. But, even then, he thought she’d find a way to disable the GPS permanently rather than dumping the entire thing.

He took the time to put on a glove before picking the thing out. He knew he should call the police, let them lift it and brush it for prints and investigate but he might be running out of time. There was a smudge of blood across the screen that told him just how much trouble she was probably in.

He was going to track down every person who’d hurt her and make them pay.

He knew her unlock code, had seen him use it often enough, so he used it now. He checked her texts quickly but there was nothing unusual there. Then he checked her call log. Jackpot. She’d called Jemma not long ago. Within the time frame since leaving Cal anyway.

He quickly transferred the number across to his phone and dialled it.

“Hello,” Jemma said, hesitantly, when she picked up on the third ring.

“Jemma,” Phil said, using his best professional voice. “This is Phil Coulson. I foster Skye.”

“Have you been with her?” Jemma asked immediately. And his blood ran cold because there was worry in that tone.

“I’m looking for her. She had a fight with her dad.”

“She phoned me a little while back in tears. She said something about he shot her?”

“Did she tell you anything about where she was going?”

“Well, I invited her here, obviously, but she turned me down. She said my parents are judgy which…”

“Jemma.”

“But since she isn’t here I presume she’s going to Grant’s place. He has a little apartment of his own so it’d make sense.”

“Do you have his address?”

“No,” Jemma admitted, sounding crestfallen. “I should have asked. Should have…”

“Hey, you did what you could,” Phil said. He pocketed Skye’s phone, was already planning avenues to find Grant’s address. He’d get it, then he’d get Clint and they’d go and bring Skye back. Whatever Grant was, he wasn’t capable of protecting her right now. Then when she was safe he’d find Cal and stop him.

Because Cal had shot Skye, who he cared for one hell of a lot.   
It wasn’t shaping up to be a good day for people Phil cared about more than he was meant to.

***

“Hello.” Phil sounded tired but still whole and that was all Clint needed right now. He didn’t have the energy for another person he cared about it not be alright.

“Hey,” Clint said. “Nat’s out of surgery. She’s… stable. Whatever that means.”

“That’s good,” Phil said, sounding genuinely released for a person he’d never met and Clint might have thought it was just because Clint cared about her but he knew Phil well enough to know that Phil was just like that. He just cared about people. All people. And Clint was maybe more than a little bit in love with him.

“Did you find the phone?”

“Yes,” Phil said. “Unfortunately, for once, Skye wasn’t attached to it.”

“That’s not like her.”

“Not at all. I got in touch with Jemma, though, and she spoke to Skye after she left home. She said Skye was upset, understandably, but seriously wounded as far as she could tell. She thinks she’s gone to Grant’s. Problem is I don’t know where he lives.”

“I’ll find out.” This was something he could do. He might not have been good for much recently but he had this.

“You don’t need to compromise yourself for this. I have my methods.”

“I won’t be, I promise. I know a guy who owes me a favour. He’ll get the address in no time. We should meet up. I don’t want you going in alone.”

“I’m probably more in practice than you,” Phil said, but he sounded amused. “Okay, I’ll meet you at mine ASAP. Get the address. We’ll go from there.”

“Will do,” Clint said, just managing to stop the ‘I love you’ tumbling from his lips. Now was pretty much the definition of not the time. He’d tell Phil, he really would, just not now. Later.

Once Skye was safe.

***

The front door slammed. Skye pressed herself back against the wall. It wasn’t as if it gave her any kind of real advantage if this came down to a fight (she really didn’t want this to come down to a fight) but she felt better for it. Like it was a defensive position or something.

Not that she thought Grant was actually going to kill her or anything. Maybe the thought had passed through her head a couple of times, but they didn’t mean she really believed he’d do it. He could be an ass but he wasn’t that much of an ass, right? He’d see that he couldn’t keep her here and let her go and that’d be fine.

Then she’d run to Phil and tell the police and everything would be alright.

At this rate, Phil would turn out to be an axe murderer or something. She had the worst luck with the men in her life.

The door opened and Grant stepped in, looking sheepish. An older man trailed behind him. He looked Skye over with cold eyes and she hated him on sight. She wished she could talk, could scream, but the tape around her head had proved infuriatingly hard to get off.

“This is what all the fuss is about?” The man said, turning up his nose like Skye was a particularly persistent smell he didn’t want to have to be bothered with any more. “Why did you even call me? You know what you need to do.”

“I just… ” Grant started, stopping again when the man looked at him. It didn’t take much to work out this must be the guy Grant thought of as his dad. The one who’d filled him with racist hate, apparently. Though she couldn’t help but think he’d done at least some of that himself.

“Now listen,” the man said, gesturing at Skye. “She’s not even white now, is she?”

“She’s nearly white.”

She wanted to scream. Wanted to tell them her mom was Chinese and she’d never been prouder to not be white than right now but she couldn’t say anything. She yanked at her wrists again but they were fastened tight. While Grant had been away she’d tried every way to escape she knew. Turned out that Hollywood had misled her about how easy it was to get out of handcuffs.

“Grant…”

“Just let me talk with her again,” Grant pleaded. “I’ll talk her around.”

The older man shrugged then turned and walked out. Grant turned his attention to Skye. He approached her slowly as though afraid she might attack at any second. She stayed still until he got the tape off her and she could talk again.

“You’re insane,” she opened with. Her arm ached and she was all twisted and so beyond subtle right now.

“You’re just frightened,” Grant said, like he understood what she was going through. Creep. “I know this is difficult for you.”

“It wouldn’t be difficult if you let me go.”

“I can’t do that,” he said, reaching out to cup her jaw. She yanked her head away violently. “You need to understand, Skye. I can’t upset John. He’s a father to me, you know that. You know how difficult family can be.”

“I’m starting to think that’s family’s overrated,” she said. And then she let out an almighty scream of help. It might be her only chance to get help, after all. Grant launched forward, grabbing hold of her face and clamping his hand over her mouth. She tried to bite him but he pushed her back against the wall, pinning her there.

The older man reappeared in the door a few second later looking severely unimpressed. He retrieved the duct tape and set about wrapping her mouth while Grant held her still. She tried to fight them, tried to kick against them and scream but two grown men were too much for her to fight off alone and soon she was reduced to impotent tears as the tape silenced her again.

Hot, angry tears started to spill down her cheeks and when Grant moved to wipe them away she jerked her head away. He had the audacity to look hurt.

“See,” the older man said, laying a hand on Grant’s shoulder. “She’s wild. Uncivilised. You can’t talk to people like her.”

“I guess you’re right,” Grant said, sounding like a wounded puppy. “I just hoped she’d be different.”

“It’s alright. It’s okay to have faith in the world. But you understand what we have to do now.”

“Yeah,” Grant said. “I’ll come with you and get the stuff from the lockup.”

“Good boy,” the man said, clapping Grant on the back. Grant dared a small, please smile and she wanted to scream again because they were talking about killing her. There was nothing else they could be meaning here. They were going to kill her and he was pleased about it.

She needed to escape.


	7. Chapter 7

The first thing Phil realised was that his door wasn’t locked properly. Sure, it was shut, but when he turned the handle it opened. He’d definitely locked it when he left the house this morning, he knew that beyond all doubt. Which didn’t bode well.

It was times like this he wished he still got to carry a concealed weapon. He could really use the reassurance of a gun in his hand right now.

He opened the door slowly and walked in. His hallway was a mess. Someone, in a rage, had torn his coats from the hooks on the wall, shredded one of them with a knife. The table with the bowl for his keys was knocked over, its drawers pulled out and their contents dumped on the floor.

Not that there were many serious options for who it might be anyway but any of Phil’s personal enemies from the bad old days would likely be more controlled.

He found a man sitting in a similarly disturbed living room. He’d torn all the cushions from the sofa and was sat on the base, staring desperately at the gun in his lap.

“Hello Cal,” he said, cautiously walking into the room. The man’s head snapped up and he knew he’d guessed right. Skye’s father.

“You’re the infamous Phil,” Cal said, stroking his gun gently. “Somehow I thought you’d be taller.”

“How’d you find my house?”

“I followed Skye here a few months back,” he said, casually. “I wasn’t going to let that interfering social worker take her away where I couldn’t get her. No way. What if I needed her?”

“So you followed them here.”

“Didn’t dare get too close. Just saw her safely to the door, you know. It’s hard to trust other people with your kids, Phil.”

“I’m sure it is,” Phil said, trying to keep his tone calm. He was relatively sure he could disarm the other man but didn’t fancy the bullet in the stomach if he turned out to be wrong.

“I mean, what’s so bad about me? I try. Guys like you, it’s easy for you. With your clean house and your fancy things. You’ve probably never lost anyone. Have no idea what it’s like to suddenly lose your wife. To be left with only your daughter and to never be enough.”

“You’re right, I don’t know,” Phil agreed. “But what I do know is that the daughter you raised is an amazing young woman.”

“In spite of me, not because of me.”

“Does that matter? She’s intelligent and responsible and she has an amazing sense of what’s right and what’s wrong. She’s a good person. And right now, Cal, she’s missing.”

“I know that. Who do you think made her run?”

“It’s not just that,” Phil admitted. There were a lot of things he didn’t know here but the one thing he did know was that, as twisted a love as it was, Cal did love his daughter. He could use that. “I’ve been trying to trace her. I found her phone in a garbage can.”

“She’d never do that.”

“That’s what I thought so I called Jemma, her friend. She said that… Daisy… had gone to her boyfriend. I’m worried about her. I know you are too. I know you don’t like me, Cal, but right now that doesn’t matter. Right now your daughter is out there and she might be in all kinds of trouble. She needs us. Needs you.”

“Needs you, you mean.”

“Needs both of us. She’s in trouble. I can’t go in there alone and be sure to get her out safely. She needs us both, Cal.”

“She didn’t tell me she had a boyfriend,” Cal said, jaw tightening. “Is he…”

“I don’t know a lot about him either,” Phil said, which was something like the truth. He didn’t know a lot about Grant, just enough to know he really didn’t like the kid. “Will you help me help your daughter?”

“Of course,” Cal said. He reached forward and, hesitantly, laid the gun down on the shattered remains of Phil’s coffee table. “I really fucked up, didn’t I?”

“Maybe,” Phil said. He stepped forward and drew a handkerchief out of his pocket. They laughed at him in the office for still carrying the cloth kind but it was useful now when he used it to pick the gun out and wrap it up, sliding it into his own pocket where it’d be safe.

“When we find this boyfriend, if he’s hurt her, I’m going to hurt him. You realise that.”

“We’ll form a line,” Phil promised. “Make sure everyone gets their turn.”

***

Clint felt faintly ridiculous knocking on the door, given the situation. He felt like he should maybe run into Phil’s house like an action hero in a movie or something, but the sad truth of it wass he wasn’t a hero. He was barely competent at what he did do.

It tookPhil a few seconds to answer. When he did it took all Clint’s resolve not to just fling himself into Phil’s arms on the spot and beg to be held. Beg for Phil to somehow take over all this responsibility. He knew there was no chance of that actually happening but he could wish.

Then he saw Cal.

Cal, standing calmly behind Phil as if nothing has happened. As if he wasn’t the reason Nat was lying in ICU fighting for her life. As if he wasn’t the reason Skye was missing and none of them knew where she was.

Clint's hand twitched for a gun that wasn’t there any more. Oh god, the gun. Did Cal still have the gun? How did he even find this place?

"Clint," Phil said, slowly. Clint took a deep breath. Whatever the situation was here, he wasn't going to make it worse by jumping in. He needed for them to be able to resolve this without a gunshot wound in Phil's gut.

"You okay?"

"I am fine," Phil said. "Cal has agreed to help us find his daughter."

Clint wanted to turn around and point out just how much they didn't need Cal's help, thank you very much, but he didn't know what had gone down here. Phil had obviously found a way to defuse the situation for now and Clint wasn't going to intentionally mess that up. Anything that helped them find Skye faster.

"Okay," Clint said. He couldn't stop himself reaching out to squeeze Phil's hand. A reassurance that they were still both here and alive. His heart was still racing. Phil squeezed back for a second and then, impulsively, leant in and pulled Clint into his arms. Clint went willingly, letting go for just a second, burying his face in Phil's shoulder and grabbing handfuls of Phil's jacket and they were alive. Both of them were alive. Despite how easily everything could have gone wrong.

Now they just had to make sure Skye came out of this alive too.

***

Skye was very aware that she was running out of time. Grant and his enabler of a step-dad had been gone for who knew how long (and why the hell didn’t Grant even have a clock on his wall?). Her phone was gone. He’d taken his. There was a computer but it was on a desk right across the room and she hadn’t been able to reach it, not even using the things she could reach as props.

She’d tried everything she could to get out of the handcuffs. She was pretty sure her wrists were bleeding, they were definitely aching anyway. She’d pulled as much as she could, though her shoulder was still aching and that had started bleeding again.

She’d heard somewhere that you could get out of handcuffs by dislocating your thumb. Which had sounded painful but preferable to dying. She’d soon worked out, though, that she hadn’t the faintest idea of HOW to dislocate a thumb and hitting her hands against the wall hadn’t seemed to do anything.

And they were going to kill her. They were really going to kill her. Grant had gotten that crazy glint in his eye that she’d never seen before that meant he was really going to do it, and she was out of options.

Then she heard the door open. Of course she did. Of course she’d be out of time already. She grabbed a pencil she’d managed to pull close with her feet. It wasn’t going to be any actual help but it made her feel better to have it at least.

“Skye?”

Phil. That voice had been Phil. She tried to call out but the gag was still around her face so she settled for clanking the chains of the handcuffs against the pipes instead. A second later the bedroom door opened and Phil was there.

“Skye,” he said, rushing to her. She felt tears prick the back of her eyes. He was here. Was really here. He took her face in his hands then began to unwind the tape around her mouth. As he did she saw Clint coming in the door and then, to her surprise, her dad.

“Daisy,” her dad said. He looked pale and sad and somehow smaller than he ever had before. She looked away. He’d shot her, after all. She didn’t need to humour him now.

“Here,” Clint said, kneeling at her side. “Let me look.” He lifted a hand and laid it on her shoulder. She winced as he touched the graze and he pulled the remains of her t-shirt back to see it better.

“It’s okay,” Phil said, glancing at it. “I’ve seen much worse. We’ll get you to the hospital and they’ll clean it up.”

Then he was done with the tape and she could finally talk again.

“It was him,” she said, looking over to her dad. “He shot me.”

“I know,” Phil said, gently stroking her cheek now. “I know and we’re going to take care of everything but we need to get you out of here. Who did this to you?”

“Grant,” she said, flushing a little. She knew Phil had disapproved but it was hardly her fault that he’d been proven right. “He’s insane, Phil. He wants to, like, kill a load of people for his cause or something. I didn’t know…”

“It’s okay,” Phil said.

“Here, let me see your wrists,” Clint said, helping her lean forward. “I can get these open.”

“Interesting skill,” Phil said, stroking Skye’s hair. She glanced over to her dad. He somehow looked even smaller, defeated. And she hated it. He shouldn’t be like that. Whatever he’d done, he was her dad. She loved him and she hated him and the last thing she wanted was to see him looking so old and so weak and so broken, so she turned her head and laid it on Phil’s shoulder.

“Maybe one day I’ll tell you how I got it,” Clint said, gently taking her wrist, and she bit back on a sob, not because it hurt but because no matter what happened here, things would never be the same again.

Of course, that was the moment the door banged open again. she looked over to find her dad backing into the room and, a second later, Grant following him, gun drawn.

He’d brought a gun. There was no point in even trying to think the best of him now, was there? He really had intended to kill her.

“Grant,” Phil said. “Put that gun down.”

“I’m sorry,” he said. He looked devastated and for half a second she began to believe that he really was going to just put the gun down and give himself up, then his finger on the trigger began to twitch.

Clint and Phil moved so fast that she didn’t see what happened next, crowding in front of her and she screamed no, because they couldn’t use themselves to cover her, they couldn’t. How was she ever going to live with herself if one of them got shot instead of her? But as she shouted, someone else screamed. There was a clatter and a shot and when Clint and Phil pulled back, Grant was on the floor, the gun across the room and her dad was kneeling over Grant, pinning him down.

“Are you hurt?” she shouted, not caring for a second that she was meant to be mad at him. “Is anyone hurt?”

“The shot went wide,” Phil said. He squeezed her quickly then let go and went to the gun, grabbing a handkerchief out of his pocket to pick it up and it was so British detective drama that she wanted to laugh, so she did and then she was crying and Grant was fighting with her dad and her shoulder was bleeding again…

And then the door banged open for a final time and the police came in. Just as her wrists sprung free, of course, Clint finally releasing one of the cuffs. She pulled her hands in front of her and rubbed at them as the adults in the room all held their hands up and the police moved in.

It was over.

It was really, really over.


	8. Chapter 8

Clint hadn’t realised how much Natasha was weighing on him until he’d got back to the hospital. Skye had been quiet on the ride over, leaning on Phil’s shoulder and reaching up almost absently to touch her wound every few minutes. She was definitely crashing in a bad way and all he wanted was to take her home but they weren’t done yet.

He’d steered her up to the treatment room, eager to get her out of the way before Cal showed his face. He’d been following in the car behind, needing to be checked for the wounds he’d got fighting Grant before he was taken to the police station.

Clint still wasn’t sure how he felt about the entire thing, other than his overwhelming desire to grab Skye and take her away from all this. He didn’t like that Phil had involved Cal, though he got why he did it. He didn’t know what to make of a man who'd shoot his daughter one minute then attack someone to protect her the next. Was too tired to work it all out. He was normally okay with shades of grey in relationships but right now he felt worn to the bone.

All he wanted, if he was honest, was to get Skye and Phil somewhere private and lock the doors and keep them both safe. Nat too, though he knew she wasn’t going to be leaving her hospital room for some time.

Instead he trailed Skye into a treatment room, leaving Phil sat outside. He sat there with her while they checked and cleaned her shoulder and bandaged it, holding her hand as she stared into space, then took her back out to Phil who pulled her right into his arms. Clint was almost envious for a second, he’d like to hide in those arms and forget the world. He had to remember though, however bad his day had been, hers had been worse.

“Hey,” Phil said, stroking her hair softly. “They’ve brought your dad in. They’re checking him out now. What do you want to do? Wait and talk to him, or go? You can do either, I won’t judge.”

“I… I guess I’ll wait,” Skye said, glancing over to Clint. He shrugged. He’d be here whatever. She smiled at him then nodded. “Yeah, I need to at least talk to him before, well, whatever happens next.”

“Hey, don’t worry about that yet,” Phil said.

“Well, I’m not going home, am I? Not after this.”

“No,” Clint agreed. “Even if he hadn’t hurt you, he shot my best friend in the gut. He’s going to prison, I’m afraid. But we’ll find you somewhere to stay.”

“With me. As long as there are no objections. You can stay with me.”

“Well, I can’t think of any objection to that,” Clint said with a shrug. He’d been hoping Phil would volunteer but not wanting to put words in his mouth. “I’m going to go check on my friend, if you’re alright for a few minutes.”

“Yeah,” Skye said, softly. “I think we might be.”

He’d been reluctant to leave them but he’d also been pretty desperate for news on Nat. It had taken him a while to find the right place to ask, then a while longer to clear but that, no, he wasn’t her brother or lover but he was cleared to know her medical details because they were all each other had and, then, to find out she was out of danger. She was going to live.

She was going to live.

Thank goodness.

***

When the police officer came to and asked Skye if she wanted one last chance to talk to her dad before they took him down to the station she considered just pretending that she was asleep and she couldn't hear him. Lying on Phil's shoulder, nobody would have questioned her. Tired out little girl after a hard day.

The problem was, it would be cheap and not genuine and whatever she thought of her dad, he'd saved her life. Sure, he'd also shot her, but he loved her.

They were a massive mess.

"I don't think it's even appropriate for you to ask her that," Phil was saying, his arm tightening around her and she appreciated the sentiment but she could fight her own battles.

"It's okay." she said, squeezing his arm. "I'll go talk to him."

"You should wait for Clint at least."

"Like he's going to actually talk to me with either of you in the room. The police officer's going to be there, it'll be fine."

"I just don't think..."

"Phil, let me do this. It might be some time after this before I can talk to him properly again, let me have some closure."

Phil obviously wasn't happy about it but he didn't stop her when she pulled away. She appreciated that about him, that he let her make her choices. Even when they weren't the choices he'd have made.

When she walked into the hospital room she kind of wished she’d followed Phil’s advice. Her dad didn’t look like her dad at all. As long as she’d known him, through everything, he’d always been this looming figure. This one solid point in the world. And yes, he’d been drunk and violent but he’d always been there, like a drunk and violent stone.

They’d never have that again and he clearly knew it. His head was down, his shoulders were down, he almost physically stank of defeat. And of course he was the one who’d done this to them, to her, but that didn’t make it any better.

“Hey,” she said, letting herself drift a little closer. He looked up at her, adjusting his expression into something a little less bleak when he realised who she was.

“Daisy,” he said. He made a move to reach for her but his hands were cuffed in front of him so he aborted it pretty quickly. “I… how are you? Did you see a doctor?”

“I’m fine,” she said, fingers drifting to her newly bandaged shoulder. “They fixed me up, no permanent damage, except maybe a cool scar. It’ll make me look dangerous.”

“I’m sorry,” he said, and he sounded it. “I know I’ve been getting everything wrong for a while but this… I’m sorry, Daisy.”

“I’m sorry too,” she said. “I maybe haven’t been the best daughter. I know things have been difficult but I shouldn’t have…”

“No, stop,” her dad said, moving to touch her again and again being brought up short. “Don’t talk about yourself like that. You did everything a sane and sensible person would do, you can’t blame yourself. I’m the one who was wrong…”

“I guess we’re just both fuckups,” Skye said with a little laugh.

“No, just me,” he insisted. “You’re stronger than I ever thought you would be and so grown up. Some days I look at you andI just wonder how you can possibly be that little girl who used to look up at me like I’d hung the moon.”

“Maybe it wouldn’t shock you so much if you’d been sober for more of the transformation.”

“That’s possible,” he admitted. “I just… Daisy, I love you. You know that? I know I’ve made a mess of everything but I do love you.”

“I know. I love you too, dad.”

He nodded, accepting that, and she suddenly wasn’t sure what to do next. there didn’t seem to be anything else to say but that would mean it would be over. They both knew there would be no going back after this. The next time they spoke everything would be different.

“Daisy. You don’t… I mean, I know you know you don’t have to do this but could you, maybe, visit me in prison?”

“I don’t know,” she admitted. After letting herself think for a second. “I’ll think about it.”

“Thank you,” he said. “That’s all I ask. And I’m sorry, again, for everything.”

“I’m sorry too,” she said. But this time it was easier somehow to turn towards the door. “Goodbye dad.”

***

Phil couldn't help but think that he shouldn't have let her go in there alone. He sat watching the door and worrying. Letting her go in there was the right thing to do, he knew that. She wasn’t alone and she deserved some kind of closure. He just wished he could be in there with her, holding her hand.

The entire thing still felt more surreal than anything. It was hard to get his head around the fact that his life just wasn’t going to be the same from now on. Skye was going to be a part of his life on a much more permanent basis and while he was entirely happy about that it didn’t mean that he didn’t recognise that the next few months were going to be difficult for them both. There was going to be a lot of adjusting for them. She was used to him as a special break, not as an everyday reality. He didn’t know how she was going to adjust to him all the time.

Not that she didn’t still want to try, whatever it took, but it was going to be an adjustment.

And then there was Clint.

Speaking of, Phil looked up to find Clint walking down the corridor towards him. He looked a little lost and a little sad and all Phil really wanted to do was open up his arms and pull Clint into them. Hold him tight and not let him go ever again and, dammit, he thought they both deserved it.

“Hey,” Clint said. “Where’s Skye go.”

“Don’t freak out, but she’s talking to her dad.”

“Phil,” Clint said, shocked, eyes swinging straight to the door. “You can’t…”

“There’s a police officer in there with them. I didn’t… well, she insisted. I couldn’t physically stop her. Though I suppose I could have, actually. It wouldn’t have been right.”

“Okay,” Clint said. He bit his lip, swayed in place for a second, then very slowly came to sit by Phil.

“She said she didn’t want us to go in. That it might upset him and that she wouldn’t get a real chance to talk to him then.”

“I kind of get it,” Clint said, though he didn’t look convinced. “I just… Jesus Phil, he shot her. I can’t believe he really shot her. And Nat. Then that fuckup of a boyfriend… I think that kid’s got real problems with the men in her life.”

“Hopefully not for much longer,” Phil said. Clint was sat there, so close, his hand temptingly within touching distance and Phil could only really be expected to have so much resistance. After all, everything was going to change. Everything. Maybe it wouldn’t be the worst thing in the world to hold Clint’s hand.

So he did.

Clint looked down at their now joined hands and frowned.

“Are we doing this now? I thought we’d wait…”

“Kind of done waiting. I know there are a million reasons that we’ve never talked about that this is a very bad idea but… but I want to try, okay? I think we should date.”

“Yeah,” Clint said, relaxing a fraction. He squeezed Phil’s hand. “Yeah, I think I agree with you on that one.”

“Today could have gone very differently very easily. But we’re both here. Doesn’t seem like there’s much point wasting time anymore.”

“Agreed,” Clint said, letting himself slump into Phil’s side a little. “I…”

But then the door was opening and Skye was coming out looking lost and whatever else had to wait.

***

“Hey,” Clint said, walking back into his living room. Phil was sprawled on his couch which was unusual enough, but wonderful. He was probably breaking a million rules tonight but Phil’s place had been trashed. He couldn’t let Phil and Skye go back there with the police all over it and the proof of how close Cal had come to letting his temper get the better of him all over the place. How close Phil had been to having a bullet put in him.

So they were at his. Skye was exhausted. She’d managed to shovel down some Chinese food then gone to his guest bedroom and shut the door. He could hardly blame her for wanting a little time and space.

Though it did, now, leave just him and Phil.

“Hey,” Phil said, turning and smiling at him. “Thank you, again. It’s good to not be out on the street.”

“Like I’d let that happen,” Clint scoffed. He came around the couch and very slowly approached Phil. He should probably go and sit in the easy chair but sprawling on the couch was so tempting and there had been the conversation at the hospital…

Phil didn’t move when Clint sprawled next to him so they ended up pressed together - shoulder to shoulder. It was nice. Comfortable. Like coming home.

“I’m glad you’re okay,” Clint said, impulsively, reaching over to take Phil’s hand.

“I’m glad too,” Phil said.

Clint sat for a second looking at their joined hands. He hadn’t felt like this in forever. He felt like an awkward teenager again, about to ask their crush to prom. He was normally cool. But, then, he normally approached men and women in clubs. He was normally looking for quick sex then home before breakfast. Phil was another prospect entirely. With Phil he wanted… well, he wanted everything.

“Hey,” Phil said, and when Clint looked up he leant in. It was a slow kiss, gently. Not going anywhere (Clint was so tired he wasn’t sure he could go anywhere tonight). A hello and a welcome home and he was never going to get tired of kissing Phil.

“Hey yourself,” he said when Phil pulled back. “You feel like coming up to bed? I mean, just to sleep. I don’t think…”

“Yes,” Phil said, interrupting Clint’s rambling. “I would like that a lot.”

“Awesome,” Clint said, leaning in for another kiss. And, in that moment, things were.


	9. Chapter 9

It was a Sunday morning. The sun was shining, for once. And things were good. Well, as good as they could be when you had to get up for breakfast on a Sunday morning with your social worker. 

Not that she minded having breakfast with Natasha. She liked the other woman. She’d have thought, honestly, that Natasha would never want anything to do with her. Skye’s dad had shot Natasha in the stomach after all but, well, when Clint suddenly had to hand on her case because of a potential conflict of interests Natasha had been happy to step in. 

Skye liked Natasha. In a very different way to how she liked Clint. Which was good because Clint was basically like an extra dad these days. Natasha was more like the cool aunt who she saw every so often. The one who checked in casually and sometimes did cool things with her but mostly they could just hang out and not talk. Natasha was really good at not talking and that was great. Between Clint and Phil she’d talked all her problems to death. Sometimes it was nice to just sit. 

The door to the diner opened and she looked up. Think of the devils, Clint and Phil came in. How they still managed to look so completely lovesick about each other when it’d been nearly a year she didn’t know. She kind of never wanted it to stop, though. 

“Are they being disgustingly affectionate?” 

“Kind of. Clint has his hand on Phil’s back pocket.” 

“Yes,” Natasha said, wrinkling her nose. “If I’d known they were going to be like this I’d have never encouraged them.” 

“I don’t know,” Skye said, shrugging. “It’s kind of cute.” Kind of like family was what she didn’t say. It still felt too close to the time when she’d have liked to have no dads. Now she basically had three. 

And that was the ridiculous thing, they were a family. She was going to go away to college soon and Phil had made it perfectly clear that she’d always have a home with them to return to (like she’d ever believed that wasn’t the case). People who cared about her. Though thankfully not to the point of shooting her. 

“And everything’s okay at home?” Natasha asked, actually broaching the subject they were apparently here to discuss for the first time since they’d ordered their pancakes.

“Everything’s perfect.” Then she stood up and waved for her family to come over and join them.

**Author's Note:**

> Thank you to Trojie for beta reading! <3 <3 <3

**Works inspired by this one:**

  * [[Banner/Wallpaper] Reprive](https://archiveofourown.org/works/5226683) by [Knowmefirst](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Knowmefirst/pseuds/Knowmefirst)




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